its shadow had passed her by when she missed her little brother
from the cradle; but still it had never stood by her side and said, "Lo,
I am here!" Her circle of love was so small that it seemed as though the
dread spectre could not enter. She saw it afar off; she thought upon
it sometimes in her poetical dreams, which clad the imaginary shape of
grief with a strange beauty. It was sweet to be sad, sweet to weep. She
even tried to make a few delicious sorrows for herself; and when a young
girl--whose beautiful face she had watched in church--died, she felt
pensive and mournful, and even took a pleasure in thinking that there
was now one grave in the new churchyard which she would almost claim to
weep over.

Such were the tendencies of this child's mind--ever toward the
melancholy and the beautiful united. Quietly pensive as her disposition
was, she had no young companions to rouse her into mirth. But there was
a serenity even in her sadness; and no one could have looked in her face
without feeling that her nature was formed to suit her apparent fate,
and that if less fitted to enjoy, she was the more fitted for the
solemnity of that destiny, to endure.

She had lived twelve years without knowing sorrow, and it was time that
the first lesson, bitter, yet afterwards sweet, should be learned by the
child. The shaft came to her through Elspie's faithful bosom, where she
had rested all her life, and did rest now, with the unconscious security
of youth, which believes all it loves to be immortal. That Elspie should
grow old seemed a thing of doubtful future; that she should be ill or
die was a thing that never crossed her imagination.

And when at last, one year in the fall of the leaf, the hearty and
vigorous old woman sickened, and for two or three days did not quit her
room, still Olive, though grieving for the moment, never dreamed of any
serious affliction. She tended her nurse lovingly and cheerfully, made
herself quite a little woman for her sake, and really half enjoyed the
stillness of the sickroom. It was a gay time--the house was full of
visitors--and Elspie and her charge, always much left to one another's
society, were now alone in their nursery, night and day. No one thought
the nurse was ailing, except with the natural infirmity of old age, and
Elspie herself uttered no word of complaint. Once or twice, while Olive
was doing her utmost to enliven the sick-chamber, she saw her nurse
watch her with eager love